Donek Web Site, 2nd Board recommendation

IMO: Deep bottomless powder is overrated. It's better than ice but I
prefer snow that's had some time to settle.


To each their own.... IMO deep dry powder is only tough when you eat it and
have to swim out! I love that stuff! (Not like I see if that often in
the Pac NW, but it *does* happen from time to time)


Mike T

Arvin Chang wrote:

I guess it depends for me. I was at Blackcomb Glacier in BC and 4 feet
of dry powder was amazing, but it was a wide bowl with a good steep
pitch (my friends still talk about that day years later).

:-) Dry and powder at the same time at Whistler? Nah :-)

However at
the bottom of Sentinel Bowl at Kirkwood last year I had similar
conditions and it was just killing my back leg in all that ethereal
powder.

I really think the wetness is a big issue. I can think of 2 times when
my board has just not worked as expected: one was the Baker example I
mentioned; the 2nd was at Hellbrunner in Italy.
Excuse me while I digress a little about Hellbrunner because it's a cool
place. As you come out the Mt Blanc tunnel from France it's there on
your left (Courmayeur ski area is on the other side of the valley).
There's 3 stages of ancient cable cars going up from around 1300 metres
to 3300 metres (the top stage is a little box holding 8 people). At the
top it's quite civilised - there's even a little cafe. But when you head
outside there's nothing beyond some scaffolding work to get you off the
mountain top safely - no ski area, no piste, no ski patrol - just mountain.
There are some great descents over a glacier (can't remember the name)
that take you back to the top of the 1st stage. You can even ride back
down the Valle Blanche to Chamonix, France. It's scenic rather than
challenging but it's neat to avoid the 22km drive back through the
tunnel (until you remember your van's still in Italy!)
I've had some great days there (with a guide); and on the wet snow day
it was very evident how the board performed differently on the bottom
stage compared to higher up (and that was the 160 Fish!)

So far I've preferred the thicker, heavier stuff (not quite
cement, but not the Utah silk) - part of that was because it was in
trees and the pitch was pretty shallow, so it was hard to stay at
"cruising" speed. Of course that was before I got my powder board...
so it might be a different story now. Bring it on!

Bring it on? Do you want a piece of me? :-) :-)
Here in the UK East Midlands, I can report 2 inches of fresh wet snow on
a very firm base (rocks and grass!) I shall be heading up to our local
1000 ft peak shortly

Iain

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:46:49 GMT, id no@id allegedly wrote:

Here in the UK East Midlands, I can report 2 inches of fresh wet snow on
a very firm base (rocks and grass!) I shall be heading up to our local
1000 ft peak shortly

Must be nice getting first tracks in mid November.

- Dave.

--
The only powder to get high on, falls from the sky.
http://www.vpas.org/ - Snowboarding the worlds pow pow -
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The Snowboard FAQ lives here - http://rssFAQ.org/

id wrote:
Arvin Chang wrote:

I guess it depends for me. I was at Blackcomb Glacier in BC and 4
feet
of dry powder was amazing, but it was a wide bowl with a good steep
pitch (my friends still talk about that day years later).

:-) Dry and powder at the same time at Whistler? Nah :-)

I think it was a fluke occurrence. That experience gave me a completely
skewed view of Whistler/Blackcomb. I went back last season... and it
just wasn't the same - 4" inches of fresh snow instead of 4 feet.

My experience might have been skewed since up to that point most of my
snowboarding was on the American East Coast. It's funny that you
mention that because one person of our group was co-captain of the ski
team, and she was actually having a lot of trouble in the powder, which
she had never really seen like that before. I remember it being weird
looking back and not being able to see your tracks because the snow
would resettle like sand.


Switters wrote:
Must be nice getting first tracks in November.

At least Mike has quieted down a little recently about his year-round
capability in PNW =] With these days in October/November, I hope the
snow keeps coming here in Tahoe.

--Arvin

lonerider wrote:

I remember it being weird
looking back and not being able to see your tracks because the snow
would resettle like sand.

That's cool! Can't remember too many days like that...

Iain

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:46:49 +0000, id no@id wrote:

Excuse me while I digress a little about Hellbrunner because it's a cool
place.

For those googling, that's "Helbronner"

As you come out the Mt Blanc tunnel from France it's there on
your left (Courmayeur ski area is on the other side of the valley).
There's 3 stages of ancient cable cars going up from around 1300 metres
to 3300 metres (the top stage is a little box holding 8 people). At the
top it's quite civilised - there's even a little cafe. But when you head
outside there's nothing beyond some scaffolding work to get you off the
mountain top safely - no ski area, no piste, no ski patrol - just mountain.

With a nice sign saying "Warning - you are entering a high mountain
area" in 4 languages.

There are some great descents over a glacier (can't remember the name)

The Italians call it the "Toula", the French the "Glaicer de Toule".

Thought is was time I popped back in here, seeing as winter is upon
us!
--
Champ
GSX-R 1000, GPz 750 turbo, ZX7RR Endurance Racer x 2
GYASB#0 BotToS#2 BOTAFO(T|F)#35 WG*#1 DFV#8
Team UKRM Racing : www.team-ukrm.com

Champ wrote:

For those googling, that's "Helbronner"



As you come out the Mt Blanc tunnel from France it's there on
your left (Courmayeur ski area is on the other side of the valley).
There's 3 stages of ancient cable cars going up from around 1300 metres
to 3300 metres (the top stage is a little box holding 8 people). At the
top it's quite civilised - there's even a little cafe. But when you head
outside there's nothing beyond some scaffolding work to get you off the
mountain top safely - no ski area, no piste, no ski patrol - just mountain.






I didn't even know what a piste was, looked it up now I know (heavily
ridden trail with densely packed snow) :-)

cool

bri

On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:31:25 GMT, bri719
wrote:

I didn't even know what a piste was, looked it up now I know (heavily
ridden trail with densely packed snow) :-)

Dunno if you're joking, but "piste" is french for "track". In
mountain terms, it means a prepared trail.
--
Champ

Champ wrote:

Dunno if you're joking, but "piste" is french for "track". In
mountain terms, it means a prepared trail.



I'm not joking, never heard it before...

but yeah sounds like kind of what I thought by the definition.
thx,
bri

--

* enjoying the karma *
remove LKJSDFJSD from address to email

[a day late and.. I'm not sure I have the whole thread here in
google..]

Physics aside. (Too) deep dry powder sucks! You can't turn, you're
flying through sketchy terrain and it's physically very demanding.
This phenomenon is rare and short lived because in time and in
daylight the snow WILL settle to a better consistancy.

I think that you may be talking about something slightly different
here.

Deep:
Assuming you're not talking about resort powder, which has a base,
then beyond knee/waist deep it makes no difference. You're just
floating in the stuff, so deeper's no harder. The main difficulty IMHO
is timing your breathing to match when your vision's clear; riding
trees in these conditions can be a challenge. I think people ride
slighly lower on a fish than with other boards: the board is more
submerged when you're riding and you get more face-shots.

Dry:
If you're down there under 7 percent then dryer seems better to me.
The powder in the trees is generally better than the stuff in the open
because the sun & wind don't mess with it quite so much, I think.


There is one type of snow which might be what you're refering to
though... if you have a bug dump and it's really cold, say below minus
30 or so. Very cold snow is sticky, irrespective of how dry it is.
I've no idea why, but I presume it's because you don't get the same
melting at the board surface. You can address this a bit with specific
waxing, but it's still going to be slow. In these conditions pretty
much everyone would go up in board size, and hope the avalanche risk
is low so you can ride steep. Otherwise, as you said above, this stuff
sucks (until it consolisates etc).

It must be that time of year again...

phil